Frank Lloyd Wright Day

Date:

Saturday, June 10, 2017

Time:

10:00 AM - 3:00 PM

Celebrate architect Frank Lloyd Wright's 150th birthday!

Lightning
Talks
Auditorium
30 minutes

10:30–11 amTaliesin Diary – Sarah Leavitt
National Building Museum curator, Sarah Leavitt, shares highlights from Taliesin
Diary: A Year with Frank Lloyd Wright. The book, edited by Leavitt,
features a journal written in 1942-43, the only known first-hand diary to come
out of the Taliesin Fellowship. Written by Priscilla Henken, the account offers
delightful, poignant, and often funny descriptions of the trials and joys of
day-to-day life with Frank Lloyd Wright.

11:30 am–NoonPrairie Skyscraper – Chrysanthe
Broikos
Learn about the Price Tower in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, Frank Lloyd Wright’s
only built skyscraper. Museum curator Chrysanthe Broikos discusses
Wright’s long-held vision to build a cantilevered tower and how the modern
high-rise, its ornament, and furnishings, took shape.

1:30–2 pmUsonians – The Small Houses of Frank
Lloyd Wright -- Steven M. Reiss
Learn how Frank Lloyd Wright’s Usonian houses were innovative for their time.
Architect and author Steven M. Reiss
uses the Pope-Leighey House in Virginia to explore how Wright sought to provide
small but architecturally significant homes, carefully sited, and constructed
of readily available local materials. Following the talk, Reiss signs copies of
Frank Lloyd Wright’s Pope-Leighey House (UVA
Press, 2015).

2:30–3 pmFrank Lloyd Wright Designs With Nature
– William Keene
Learn how dendriform columns, open corners, and massive, room-anchoring
fireplaces were just some of the architectural moves that Frank Lloyd Wright
utilized to blur the line between inside and outside. Urban historian William Keene explores these, and
other, engineering techniques that helped Wright place architecture in nature,
and nature in architecture.

Ongoing
ActivitiesWest Court

Out On
a LimbFrank Lloyd Wright wasn’t the first architect to use the
cantilever in architecture, but it could be argued that he elevated this
building technology as he sought to link architecture and nature in new
ways. Explore Frank Lloyd Wright’s use
of the cantilever through hands-on building, then build your own; visit
Fallingwater and other Wright buildings using Google Cardboard augmented
reality technology to see Wright’s use of cantilever in context; make a paper
model of the Research Tower at the Johnson Wax Headquarters to see how its
“taproot” supported “limbs” that are cantilevered floor plates. Participants
will experience how Wright used this old building technology in innovative ways
to meld the natural and built worlds.

Faux
Stained Glass SuncatchersCreate a faux stained glass sun-catcher inspired by the geometric glass windows
Wright included in many of his homes. Take your creation home and hang a piece
of architectural art in your own sunny window. Drop in any time,
while supplies last.

Little Builders Storytime Every hour on the hour (11am-2pm) listen to a reading of Moxie the Dachshund of Fallingwater by Cara Armstrong. Learn about one of Wright's most famous homes through the eyes of Moxie the dog! Join us after the story for hands on play.

This is a free, drop in program open to all ages. This program is made possible by Dr. Lawrence Spinelli. In addition, the Museum Shop has special discounts on Wright-themed products for Museum Members. For more programs related to Frank Lloyd
Wright's 150 anniversary, visit flwright.org.

Image: Portrait of Frank Lloyd Wright, by Vlad Zabavskiy.

This event does not require an RSVP. Registered users can request event reminders.